Packard Forum Index » V-8 (1955-56)

Brian (BDeB)-

Thanks for advising of your research regarding additional model applications for these material samples. I had slowly been working on something similar, from another angle, but felt we needed to get the basic foundation in order, first. Yet, because you are so much farther along with it, I will leave that aspect in your hands.

Meanwhile, I was able to whip together a list of duplicate entries, by P/N - complete with their gallery ID number and the date/timeshowing and URLs to the actual entries. I had initially copied that list to this post, but after further consideration, I decided that it took up too much space and removed it. Also, it was of a highly temporary nature, but I wouldn't be able to edit out any dead links, later (due to the time-out on editing posts). If anyone is interested in working on this aspect, PM me and I'll copy the list to you.

Now, after further consideration, it looks like I wasted my time this weekend, when I should have simply let nature take its course. Therefore, I have suspended any further effort in this matter.

Brian,

I like what you are doing with the file titles and your change in description. Please feel free to modify or change as you see fit. Unfortunately, I didn't have an option of uploading them that way so the description from the tag became the file tile as unwieldy as it is.. You have followed the file titles correctly(in my way of thinking) to set up the file description/data base. Please don't feel like you wasted a weekend doing this, it will look great when you guys are finished with your end.



Regards,

Stephen -

With so many hands involved, I just didn't want to be running at cross-currents with anyone on this. Now, I will pick up with the work in my spreadsheet, during weeknights this week - to clean up the existing titles WRT to any typos and uniformity for parsing.

Understand that I generally won't be adding any information unless it appears to have been overlooked during initial transcription from the tag or truncated in transition to the site's Photo Archive. BigKev will need to look into the truncation issues and remedy as needed.

However, I might try to expand on some things. For example, if the tag and title show applicable models only as "56th" (and I know the material was used on all models), I would edit that to "5622-5642-5647-5662-5667-5672A-5677A-5682-5687-5697-5699" to accomodate the expected user search.

Yet, know that my spreadsheet will preserve the original title (as found online), separately - in case we need to look back.

My plan is to provide BigKev with a spreadsheet that lists the titles by gallery ID number so that he can write a simple routine to find each corresponding entry in the Photo Archive and merely replace the existing title with the one from my spreadsheet (or do whatever it is that is truly needed).

However, we still have a bunch of images that appear to have duplicates. Most seem to fall into one of two batches, dated 2011/2/9 or 2011/2/25, but I don't know which ones have the proper image correction. All I can do is edit the titles for each entry in my spreadsheet. Someone else will need to inspect the actual gallery entries and images and figure out which to retain and which to delete. Again, I can provide a list of those entries - about 30 pairs of duplicates and one set of triplicates.

I will check back here when I have some significant progress to report.

Two issues: Stephen is due massive credit for this as he ended up doing all the images (not half) because my eye issues knocked me out. It also means cropping is consistent, as is image treatment.

I am sure Stephen would agree with me that these images are NOT color corrected. Rosco sent us scans; we straightened them and tried to make faded labels more readable but:

The samples were not in pristine condition when scanned, some showing fading, others dirt or deterioration. What we tried to show was what the sample looked like when scanned.

Color matching is a complicated blend of black art and science: when the image is scanned each sensor (or film in the old days) reacts in different ways to different colors. Each color screen is different, as is each color printer. We see these scans as giving you a good idea what the product looked like--but no image in the collection should be seen as definitive for color.

Brian (BH),

I think in cases where there are duplicates, the later date ones should be used. Also you should have rights in the Photo archive to make direct edits/deletes on any of the photos. If you do not, let me know and I can adjust your right as such.

The truncation may be just in the display only, and not actually on the photo when searched. But I will have to check on that.

Hopefully once we get the set cleanup, titles adjusted as needed, and duplicates removed, then I can do some programming kung-fu and make it more functional of folks coming in.

Thanks, PatGreen.

Brian, I think your display is simply not showing the full title field. They definitely displayed on my Mac when I completed the files although I would get an abbreviated title field under the file icon. Once the file was opened the entire title displayed.

Helluva job everyone.

Stephen -

I am confident that nothing happened on your end to cause this.

Yet, iIf I go to this site's Advanced Search page and search for '462673' (the part number, which comes at the end of the title) in the Photo Archive (only), the search returns no results.

This tells me that '462673' does not exist in any form in the over-1000 entries of the Photo Archive.

Yet, since I discovered that the gallery ID number for 46273 is 11009, I can splice that into the basic URL for the gallery entries:

packardinfo.com/xoops/html/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=11009

Follow the link and the image title (shown twice) on that page comes up as:

5522-5542-5547-5562-5567-5582-5587-5588_Set-2-7-12-22-32-42-52-60-82-92-Imitation-Leather_Sidewall_D

Keep in mind that this only involves 18 of the origianl titles were affected and I have identified them all by their formerly lost P/N and restore the characters that appear to have been lost.

I'll know more when I got to edit the actual titles.

Kev -

Once I'm finished editing titles in the spreadsheet (2-3 more evenings should do it), I will take a look at what the Photo Gallery will allow me to do.

It is is painfully slow going with nothing but a dial-up connection, but if I can do what you say, I will have to make a trip to the local library to tap into their WiFi hotpsot.

I have finished my review and edit of the material cards titles - except for approximately two dozen entries with tags lacking complete info, which will require a little more research on my part. So, it thought I would take a break and clean up the clear-cut duplicates - 32, in all.

Logged-in, I went to the specific gallery entry (by ID number), and clicked on the "Edit This Entry" icon, but the Photo Edit and Re-upload page only provides Preview, Submit, and Cancel buttons - nothing that appears to allow me to delete. It appears, then, that my user rights need to be revised.

Meanwhile, I switched gears to begin cutting and pasting the revised titles to their respective gallery. However, the title of the very first entry that I worked on (P/N 361944, ID 10730) got truncated.

Originally, that title was:

5472-5477-54-97_5562_5582-5587_56th_Sheeting_361944

...and the field in the Photo Edit and Re-upload from accepted the full, revised expanded, title:

5472-5477-5497-5562-5582-5587-5622-5642-5647-5662-5667-5672A-5677A-5682-5687-5697-5699_Set-not-specified_Sheeting_Color-not-specified_361944

...but the revised galley entry now shows:

5472-5477-5497-5562-5582-5587-5622-5642-5647-5662-5667-5672A-5677A-5682-5687-5697-5699_Set-not-specifi

...and that's all that shows in the Title field when I go back to the edit screen.

My gut feeling tells me that, regardless of how big the field on the form is, the target field in the gallery is limited to 100 characters. That poses a problem for both the previously truncated titles and some other titles that I have expanded upon. Be advised, the longest title I can find, so far, is for P/N 6481026 - a widely used, white, genuine leather, which now contains 190 characters.

I'm concerned that the gallery title field may be hard-wired or can't handle anything more. If so, then perhaps, what goes into the image title needs to be distilled to something more basic and the details moved to the image Description field, which I believe is scanned by the site search function. Now, with a consistent five "fields" per title, I can slice, dice, and splice the titles just about any way you want - though it will take a bit more time to fully implement.

However, since I cannot envision exactly how we get from a gallery image entry to the desired database function, I leave it up to the experts to advise on how best to proceed.

Well I think given the limitation with number of character in the title field in the database, the description field would be the best place for everything. Plus I think we are trying to cram 10lbs of information into a 5lb title, if you get my drift.

So this is what I propose. Leave the images as they are for now.

I'll take your spreadsheet and take the "New Title" field and parse that into a meaningful, readable, searchable, description.

Perhaps the actual image title should be something shorter like just P/N - Material - Color. Then all the expanded detail will be in the description.

I can use your spreadsheet to automatically update every entry based on Photo ID. You can also add the spreadsheet entires for the items you want removed into the database, use "DELETE" as the new title field. When I see that, I will purge that item from the archive.

Just give me a sample format of how you want the Description to look like and I can get the parsing script built for that.